What do you do when you sit in your office chair? That’s a silly question, but a meaningful one. When you break it down, you actually don’t do much sitting at all. Rather, you squirm. You spin around to talk to someone, you lean over, you slouch and slump. You hang over the edge, sit on a folded leg, and lean on your elbow. In short, you rarely conform to the perfect position that the chair was probably designed for, by a team of dozens. So much for design.

Contrast that with the Knoll Generation series, designed by Formway. The seat pan is wide and the arms curve with the body, allowing you to sit completely to the side. The flexible back lets you lean over it, and rest your arms across the top. And this month, Knoll will unveil a new, cheaper version in the line, the ReGeneration chair. But not just cheaper — also, greener.

[The full line. ReGeneration is in the middle. While the back doesn’t bend over, the proportions and plastic mesh are preserved]

Granted, the plastic mesh on the back of previous chairs was already derived from corn byproducts. But the ReGeneration uses far less materials overall, thus conserving resources. With fewer parts and connections, the chair is also lighter to make, ship, and pack, reducing the carbon footprint. In all, it has just seven basic parts, requiring just 10 screws. It weighs 26 pounds — 37% less material and 11 pounds lighter than its forebear, which Knoll says was already 20% lighter than most high-performance office chairs.